The problem up until now is that split testing has been a complex affair, what with coding separate landing pages, trying to make sense via manual calculations of which variation won and why… enter Visual Website Optimizer, hands down one of the most insanely profitable and worthwhile investments I have made in a very long time.

If you ware looking for a point and squirt split testing solution that will enable you to aggressively split test your website, then you have got to check out this amazing service.

You’ll get a free trial (no credit card needed) and 1,000 credits to start testing the system for yourself. So go ahead and give it a bash, I could not recommend it more highly.

Check out Visual Website Optimizer Now!

This forms part of my stacking theory, which we can discuss at a later point in time, however the basic premise is that you should see your online business as a stack of crates, whereby you add to your business (be it revenue, resources, capital, clients or prospects) by stacking on top of already successful and highly functional layers (crates).

My matrix looks like this… HIGHER CONVERSIONS = MORE SALES + MORE VISITORS = EVEN MORE CUSTOMERS @ HIGHER CONVERSIONS = INFINITELY MORE SALES.

They key to this matrix is TESTING and I am so obsessive about it that I never put out anything in my sales funnel that does not include at least 2 variations or more, which enables me to test the response and conversion rate.

To highlight my point let me give you a working example. Recently I sent out an email on Aweber, which allows you to split test your emails, meaning you can divide your lists and send more than one variation to a segment of the list.

As you can see from the image on the left one variation of my email received a 37% open rate, with a 21.3% click through rate, whilst the other received a 40.2% open rate and a 24.2% click through rate.

Now that might not sound like much, but let me explain this in $$$ Dollars $$$ – the one email variation received 190 more clicks that the other, which resulted in 18 more sales than the first variation which was a net increase of $774.

And the only difference between the two emails… ONE WORD IN THE SUBJECT LINE!

This is a read I highly recommend.

Today I am going to share with you how in recent times (about the last year) I have bucked the trend of giving stuff away for free and in the process doubled my revenue and more importantly tripled my profitability through what I call the “The Paying Prospect Method”.

I was one of the very first marketers online to realize the value of providing a free compelling offer in exchange for people’s contact details in order to build a list of “prospects”, and in the early days it worked like fricken gang busters, and it’s still does although if you’re paying close attention to your web analytics you’ll notice this is starting to change slowly.

Consumers are getting wiser, they’re using throw away email address to get your free stuff and worse still is that many are actually just tuning out completely to these offers… we all know there’s no free lunch right (can you say bounce rate).

So unlike some marketers who’ve resided to dropping the first name and other info in their lead building (name squeeze pages) to try and breathe new life into this once perfect prospecting method, I decided to buck the trend completely and started silently under the radar working on building lists of paying prospects.

Now I can hear my fellow marketers shouting “those are not prospects those are clients” and this is where my one track, lack of lateral thinking, fellow marketers would be monumentally wrong, possibly to the tune of a few million buckaroos.

You see I enter everything with and end goal in mind and sometimes you have to jump through a few hoops to get there. Online those hoops represent the trust and comfort prospects feel in any transaction.

So the idea is to “bate” them into transactions at the low end of the market, and gradually move the “free line” to where they are spending larger amounts of money more regularly.

Sounds pretty simple right, ummm not really, we tried $1.00 trials, $5 first offers and even $10 first installments and whilst some of these methods worked well, nothing and I mean nothing has come close to giving a limited version away for free with the credit card details required to get access with automatic billing after x days to the full version.

Whoooha hold the bus… Did you just say free stuff? That’s like exactly what you said is not working anymore???

So you are paying attention?

Not close enough because there are two significant things that are different here from the traditional free offer. First of all I don’t consider it free because if someone is willing to give you their credit card details (even if you are not billing them right now) that prospect is shiz niz hot to convert, and secondly the bonus is you now have the vehicle to do one click up sells and cross promotions or as I call it moving them “across the free line”.

And as you gain their trust they will spend more with you, and as they do this you simply continue to group your prospects into lists according to their spend for super-hot targeted prospects.

My paying prospect method might sound simple but it has taken 18 months to develop and perfect. So why then am I sharing this with you?

Well the formula is not complete, and I hold one final secret key to this entire solution and if you want it you going to have to pay me for it (that’s right I am moving you off the free line).

In about 500 words or less will tell you how to apply this to affiliate marketing, your own product, other people’s products and even how to use it in your advertising to absolutely skyrocket your income and minimize the amount of time you spend giving away free stuff.

Simply PayPal me $200 by filling in your information clicking the buy now button below and within 72 hours I will personally deliver the final part of this formula to you via email.

Your Full Name

Primary Email Address:

And listen if you think $200 is a lot for a puny 500 words that I am going to copy and paste to everyone who PayPal’s me, rather consider the cost of not knowing the value of what’s in those puny 500 words.

Peace out.

Whenever I am faced with fear or self-doubt in making a risky decision be it in life or in business I repeat these words to myself and pump my fists in the air shouting out aloud ““Live a little, take a f%^king chance why don’t you”

Now I am not for one second suggesting that you should make irrational or emotional decisions, but its human nature especially in the 21st century to analyze the crap out of something to the point of paralysis, and it’s been my experience that the worst mistake you can ever make in life or in business is to simply do nothing.

Risk is an inevitable part of life, and I’ve got news for you, if you signed up to be an entrepreneur you better learn to embrace it and to slap it’s big voluptuous ass, because you aint gonna bake the perfect cake without breaking a few eggs.

So the next time you’re sitting on the edge of weighing all those pros and cons, my suggestion is you repeat these words to yourself “Live a little, take a f%^king chance why don’t you” and then jump head first into the decision, because even if you fail, you’ll learn the most valuable lesson of all…

Or as Leo F. Buscaglia put it: “The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn feel, change, and grow.”

365 Day personal run down:

• Welcomed my daughter into the world.
• Discovered parenting, yoga and meditation.
• Did 5 awesome mind blowing exotic vacations.
• Had an off-road riding accident and had a knee operation.
• Spent 5 months rehabilitating my knee and got fat.
• Got some much needed introspective during knee rehab.
• Started working out twice a day.
• Started swimming a mile a day.
• Completed 9 major open water swimming races
• Lost 15KG’s.
• Read 7 books on weight loss.
• Started a weight loss blog.
• Read 46 books on business and marketing.
• Moved from BB to iPhone.
• Changed Cars.
• Dramatically increased my networth.
• Became even more self-assured about life.

365 Day professional run down

• Consolidated my business to concentrate on core projects
• Sold 262 of my online projects
• Sold a business to the New York Times
• Sold a business to Virgin
• Sold a business to Verizon
• Took on my 100th employee
• Closed my offices and took the entire company virtual
• Flew the entire company with family members to Mozambique for New Years
• Launched a full blown SEO service in South Africa
• Launched a Social Media Marketing Company
• Continued to mentor my Internet Marketing Upstart group
• Met with some notable big wigs in the traditional business world
• Sort of became an advisor to government on industry policy
• Had more fun in the last 365 days doing business than ever before
• Made more money in the last 365 days than ever before

Yip, I’ve been busy and thankfully learnt to limit my attention more than ever before to the things that matter most personally and those that produce the most profit professionally.

Which leads to the question, why am I reopening my blog?

1. I enjoy sharing business ideas and insights
2. I want to connect with other business movers and shakers

So why should you follow me in 2011 and onwards?

Quite simply, I am the 900 pound industry gorilla that lurks at virtually every corner of the net, name an industry online and chances are I am either in it and dominating it, or about to go into it, and about to dominate it.

You need to be following me, learning from me and networking with me and the people I know because unlike all the so called “names” in the industry, mine is the one that is behind a record number of real world, first of its kind, ground breaking businesses. And despite my track record I’ve purposely always kept a low profile and stayed humble in comparison to many of the loud and in your face Internet marketers.

So if that makes sense to you, by all means follow me, if not then don’t, either way the choice is yours. That being said, I have learnt my lesson last time I ran this blog and gave of my time, so please understand that I will have a clear set of rules for this blog going forward:

These new rules include:

1. Nothing will be for free EVER again; if you want to learn from me you must be prepared to invest in yourself by paying for my time, so yes there will be a fee attached to the majority of information I put out.
2. If you’re a jack ass and a haggler I refuse to engage with you and I will go out of my way to publically embarrass you.
3. I will not respond to emails from this blog, but feel free to comment on the content I put out and I will comment back.4. This blog will no longer be exclusive for South Africans.
4. This blog will no longer be industry specific, so prepare for some real business and life lessons, I think I’ve earned some authority on the subjects.
5. Don’t expect me to post regularly, I will post when I have something of value to share, but feel free to follow my Facebook page and Twitter accounts for more regular updates.

Please don’t make the mistake of judging my confidence as arrogance, and don’t make the mistake of underestimating the value of what I have to share, because like I said things have CHANGED and there is a whole new kind of sheriff in town.

I have had the good fortune of meeting a few good folk over the last 4 years as a direct result of this blog, a handful of which I have welcomed into my life with open arms and truly consider friends.

I have also had the good fortune of realising through my teachings just how privileged I have been to be blessed with the extraordinary vision and higher understanding that has allowed me to become such a dominant force within this industry.

Although I have always considered my blessings as a direct result of extreme amounts of hard work and dedication, my interaction over the last 4 years with people via this blog, has led me to realise that while there is no substitute for hard work, one cannot deny the natural talents you have been given, and so for the first time ever I am acknowledging that hard work alone is no substitute for natural acumen.

I would love to say that everyone can become successful in making money online, but the bare naked truth is that not everyone has the acumen and lateral thinking that is required to become an online entrepreneur, and this alternate state of mind cannot be taught or learnt.

In 2006 when I returned to home to South Africa after having setup my online business in the USA, I was wide eyed with optimism at the prospect of helping other local aspiring Internet Marketers, and looking back I have no regrets other than that for the first time in my business career, I allowed my heart to lead my decision making and thinking, rather than the usual cool calculated business brain that has secured my success in life thus far.

Looking back, one of the biggest mistakes I have made in terms of teaching what I know, is that I did it all without any commercial intent, and worse still is that I made the point of repeatedly voicing this over and over, partly because I was proud to give back, and partly because I wanted people to understand that because of my good fortune and blessings, I really wanted to help. In hindsight I realise what a grave mistake this has been.

Because of my regular blogging I quickly attracted followers, and over 9000 local people joined my newsletter since the start of this blog to learn more about online marketing and to discover some of the lessons I was imparting in terms of running an online business.

From the start of this blog I have personally answered every email, personally responded to every comment and question, and never once have I placed myself on a pedestal and put myself out of reach, as so many of the other people who teach in this industry do.

As time progressed, I started to find that the more I gave, the more people expected, and I found myself answering email after email, and question after question (all for free I might add) from people who quite literally felt I owed them this responsibility.

Despite the unbelievable amount of time I have given to this blog and to the individuals who have emailed me over the past 4 years, I cannot say that it’s all been as rewarding as I had expected a philanthropic gesture of this nature to be, in fact quite the opposite in many cases.

I have often found myself on the receiving end of multiple email tirades, not to mention the number of times I have been plagiarised verbatim, and then of course there has been the total lack of interaction on every forum we have started.

It’s easy in this sea of negativity to get hung up on all the bad things, and for the most part I choose to take the positive experiences with me, and learn from the negative ones.

On the positive side, I have learnt that if you ever intend on helping others and teaching what you know, you have to charge them a fee from the outset, or it will never be appreciated, and as much as you would like to make yourself approachable you simply cannot help everyone.

I have also learn that the value of giving is not simply a random act of kindness, to have a truly lasting impact on people you have to teach them to invest in themselves, and you have to create this culture by not simply giving all the time, but by creating a two way exchange.

As I have said before the last 4 years have taught be some enormous lessons, all of which has led me to value my time more and carefully consider how I give of myself in the future.

For now I am going to concentrate my efforts on a more personal level, and over the next while most of my time will go towards being a new parent, more family time, and some serious time spent in the gym after 4 years of total body neglect, not to mention some serious catch-up on leisure travel and some much needed restructuring of my business around my personal requirements as the next phase of my life approaches.

I wish you well in your online business journey, and every bit of success.

Here is the Audio Podcast

We are officially launching the Internet Marketing Upstart Program on 6 May 2010, so make sure you head over to this link to find out what this is all about.

Here is the link, make sure you go and confirm now:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=119608771385134

And when you are done there, go and take a listen to what Darryn Rex has to say about the program, here is the link to that interview:

http://www.internetmarketingupstart.com/program-news/interview-with-darryn-rex.php

Anyway a long story short, the IMU virtual program will show you EVERY step you need to take to build a successful online business, just like I have.

But don’t take my word for it, hear what Dawie Bester has to say about the Internet Marketing Upstart Program in his interview with Luis.

And hey don’t be shy, if you have questions about the program feel free to ask on this blog page.

For 2 years we have privately joked about how we feel sorry for the average Joe trying to make it online without this information, and for 2 years I have been nagged and pestered from just about every angle to open this information to the public.

Long story short, we have decided to open this information via a virtual training and mentoring program which will go live and be available on Thursday, 6 May 2010, 10:00 am GMT+2

But I have to issue a word of warning:

• This program is not for everyone (you need to be an action taker)
• There will only be a limited number of spaces made available

No matter what your level of experience is (complete novice or experienced) this program takes you back to basics and will show you the correct way to build a sustainable online business.

Rather than bombard you with information, we have decided to release several very frank interviews with existing members, as well as a couple of background videos each day in the build up to our official launch.

Hopefully this information will provide you with a very real perspective of what this program is about and empower you to make an informed and logical decision over whether to join this program or not.

So make sure you mark down Thursday, 6 May 2010, 10:00 am GMT+2 in your calendar for our official launch and make sure you catch each interview and video we release over the next few days.

So without further delay, here is the first audio recording between Luis and Laura, so go and take a listen now

So here is the story…

On the 6th of each month I process a payment via either PayPal or 2Checkout for R15,0000.00 to a children’s home that I support in Mexico, and I have done this for the past 27 months without any hassles, but this month you can imagine my surprise when both PayPal and 2Checkout accounts returned the message “Authorisation Failed: Do Not Honour”, and the funny thing is it was declining on all my cards.

So I phoned up the bank, only to be questioned without any explanation who I was paying, what I was paying for, and to which country. My response to the call centre agent was that I felt slightly uncomfortable with this line of questioning and that I wanted to know why the bank needed this all this information… I was promptly informed if I did not like it; I should find an alternate way of paying.

Thankfully I was cut off from this agent, and upon my second attempt I managed to connect with someone who had more than a single digit IQ and at-least took the time to explain the situation to me.

Apparently in the last month the South African Reserve Bank has imposed a new law on all banks in the country to place an transaction limit of R10,000.00 per day on all outgoing transactions, anything over this requires an authorisation and full declaration to the bank which is then captured in the South African Reserve Banks database.

“Apparently” this limit has been imposed because of the high rate of credit card fraud… the really funny thing is that the limit on local transactions remains unchanged and unlimited, meaning that you can buy up to a trillion, gazillion, Rand online within South Africa, without authorisation.

Smells like bullshit to me, and no doubt this will have a major impact on those of us locally advertising overseas… what do you think?

I am told he did this to keep his skills as a brick layer alive, and also to show his workers that he was prepared to do everything he delegated, so I guess it’s only natural that with these influences I will always do the same.

So this year I decided to get back in the trenches, and have started running several small campaigns and projects myself until they are big enough and worthy enough to hand over to my team, and let me tell you it’s not only been extremely rewarding, but it’s been a great deal of fun also.

But I digress…

Anyway I was dropping some emails campaigns out the other day to a brand new list that I just started building, and I was basically promoting a vertical affiliate offer. Now normally with affiliate links, most people are inclined to just drop the affiliate link directly into the body of the email and then let Aweber (or whatever system they use) take care of the “cloaking” and tracking, which actually is a huge mistake.

Normally the way we do things is that we have our own link tracking server, and we’ll drop our affiliate link in this system and generate our link own code which will redirect to the affiliate link when people click on it, so this is the generated link we place in the emails that go out.

So why do we do this?

Well firstly it serves to “cloak” your link (in a manner of speaking), and secondly and most importantly it allows you to control where traffic is sent down the line, for clarity sake let me provide an example to illustrate what I am talking about.

Let’s say for example…

You do an email drop with the affiliate link directly in the body of the email you send out… what happens if that affiliate program ends, or worse yet if you are doing CPA offers and the network says to you please redirect or stop sending traffic as the number of leads have been capped (this happens all the time)…

You see if you have direct linked, you have no way of controlling the traffic!

On the other hand if you are cloaking and redirecting the link via your own system or on your side, and dropped a link in the email that you control and can redirect at any time, all you need to do is change the link on your system or end and shazam your email click though traffic will not be wasted.

So look you can setup a script, and tracking server if you like, but if you need something quick and easy, here is a sure fire, fail safe, almost forgotten, affiliate marketing trick (I still use this from time to time)

• Setup a .htaccess file (you can even do this in a sub folder)
• Create a “fictitious page name” redirect (code supplied below)
• Drop the url to the fictitious page name in the body of the email

Now If you ever need to redirect traffic, just change your affiliate URL in your .htacces file. So here is the “fictitious page name” redirect code that you will use in your .htaccess file:

Redirect /offername.php http://www.affiliatelink.com

• offername.php can be whatever name you choose
• http://www.affiliatelink.com will be the link to your affiliate offer

The code that you will then drop in your email will be:

http://www.yourdomain.com/offername.php which will redirect to your affiliate url listed in your .htaccess file.  And you can have as many of these “fictitious page name” redirect codes in your .htaccess file, as long as they are listed on separate lines, for example:

Redirect /offername.php http://www.affiliatelink.com
Redirect /offername2.php http://www.affiliatelink2.com
Redirect /offername3.php http://www.affiliatelink3.com

I hope this helps you make the most of your traffic, and always I would love to hear your comments and feedback.

Please take five minutes and complete these quick survey questions:

[download id="1" format="1"]

I hope this stimulates some PayPal earning ideas and gets your creative energy flowing, as always I would love to hear your feedback and ideas.

As for FNB, well there is no doubt that they are leading the banking charge (in my humble opinion) and the move to bring PayPal to South Africa is bold, wise and much needed, so thank you.

I just converted my personal SA PayPal account to a business PayPal account and linked it via my FNB internet banking console, all super-duper easy… so if you don’t have an FNB bank account and internet banking sorry for you… pop in and setup an account soon!

And this is just in time because Luis and I have a BIG Internet Marketing announcement coming in the next few weeks, and no guesses which payment platform we are going to be using when we launch this.

And as if things just could not get more sweet (as in sweet bru), Telkom is already beta testing 8Meg ADSL

So let’s see what do we have left to bitch about… AH Juliaaaas (what a chop).

Catch the FNB CEO Podcast On PayPal Here

I am the first to confess that the word “audit” used to invoke visions of me stabbing some pencil pushing accountant through the neck with a ball point pen, but that was until I met a remarkable businessman 7 years ago who completely changed my opinion and outlook on “auditing”.

It was a chance meeting that brought us together, I was scouting the deep south of the USA (Houston Texas to be precise) for e-waste that could be salvaged and resold into Africa, and he had just come into retirement after not one, but two, Fortune 500 success stories that he was instrumental in building from the ground up.

As it turns out my crazy South African accent and his curiosity for all things foreign got us talking in some backend, back road, dinette and has since led to a seven year friendship that has left me with more business lessons than I am able to impart in this lifetime.

It’s very rare that I find myself in awe of anybody, but I am first and foremost a scholar of life, and if I find a teacher that has value to add, you can bet your uncles left knuckle I am gonna listen and learn.

The one thing that Alan impressed upon me early on, is the importance of reviewing and measuring performance in all aspects of the business, and for the past 6 years we’ve been aggressively turning over every stone in the business, evaluating it, perfecting it and leveraging it.

Four times a year we do a complete internal audit, from budgeting to expenditure, through to productivity, infrastructure and resources, and when I say no stone gets left unturned, trust me that’s not just figure of speech.

My staff and I have come to love these audits, because not only are they a benchmark on the perfection and goals we strive for, but they ALWAYS turn up little gems that take us to the next level.

You know you hear big corporate talk about Q1 VS Q4, budget versus expenditure and often as a smaller business you think, “what a load of baloney”, but let me tell you something, if you don’t know these important numbers in your business right now buddy old pal, you’re flying blinder than a dingbat out of hell.

So glace over this post if you must, but if you want to be in the winners circle sipping champagne, ask yourself this, if you continue to do the same thing, how can you expect a different result?

Bottom line, if it can be tracked and measured, it should be!

Internet Marketing Brunch 2010

Aside from the Internet Marketing Brunch, I caught up with the guys from my Internet Marketing Upstart Mentoring Program, met up with my overseas JV partners who where in town, had lunch with the guys from Shopdirect, saw a few old friends, made a few new ones, and of course got my usual fix of copious amounts of Cape Hake and Chips from my favourite place in the whole of Cape Town – Fish on the Rocks.

After a fantastic fortnight in the Mother city and some absolute pampering from the 12 Apostles Hotel it was time to return to Durban, and with two hours to kill on our 1time flight, I took the time to assemble my thoughts and reflect on the difference between Durban and Cape Town, specifically when it comes to the online industry and Internet Marketing

Firstly just let me say that the airlines choice of name is very appropriate as that is the exact number of times I intend boarding their airline in my lifetime, but that’s a story for another day…

So when it comes to Internet Marketing in South Africa, I consider myself somewhat of a custodian and pioneer, I mean I was selling product online way, way, way before we even had the 7 Rand Telkom calling plan (for the younger folk with us, that’s a moer of a long time ago).

And more specifically I am a crazy loyal Nattalian or is that Kwazlu-nattalian, and I have never found it easy to admit defeat against the Capetonians, be it on the rugger pitch, or in the boardroom, but I am afraid even I cannot deny the facts when it comes to the online space.

Cape Town is where our industry is happening in South Africa, there I said it… gggg phew, that tasted bad.

In terms of industry, innovation, skill, jobs, foreign investors, and natural progression, Durban is really licking the arse end of the stick, and I know exactly why… bad governance and a piss poor leadership.

We have more land space, cheaper real estate, and the birth of the East Coast Easy Access Seacom cable (not to mention an ocean you can actually swim in) but because we have a bunch of prize chops running our province, we have more potholes and fewer foreign investors than Zimbabwe – and that really pisses me off as an entrepreneur and loyal Nattalian.

So to Mr Sutcliffe other local government cronies, please get off your overfed and over indulged rear ends, and help us start putting the right foot forward to attract at least some of the digital economy to our warmer oceans.

All I can say is thank heavens I am in the digital economy, because all things said, I still prefer KZN, and no matter how much my wife nags me to “like move to the mother city because of Mama Zille” nothing beats a Johnnies Rottie, a half mutton bunny, hot summer days on Inanda dam, and some inspiring eye candy on Umhlanga main beach.

Our leadership may suck donkey balls, but we still have pretty good ADSL connections… oh and that reminds me I have a date with the ocean, time for a little body boarding and brunch at Joe kools, see you kats later.

So what do you think?

BUT first, some background information…

Everybody knows as a matter of fact that when it comes to big campaigns, online marketing conversion, and search engine optimisation Justin Harrison Marketing is the undisputed 900 pound gorilla.

We’ve been called everything from genius to school yard bully, and in the last decade we have built a behemoth of a company out of search marketing and conversion optimisation, and this success has led to companies like BBC, Amazon, BA and many even bigger companies begging for our services.

Now of course it’s easy to interpret this statement as arrogant, but trust me when you have 80 staff to take care of and you work with some of the biggest brands and names in the industry, there is no time for arrogance and your only fall back is your track record.

However a year ago I decided to completely abandon taking on new client and JV projects, simply because it was far too time consuming and my own online businesses where suffering, (well not suffering, but not growing like they should have been), and frankly put my company was so busy making other people money that we neglected our own growth.

It was at this very same time that I started a small and intimate closed door mentoring group, called the Internet Marketing Upstart Program with 10 local budding online entrepreneurs, and in so doing exposed myself and my business strategy to 10 outsiders, one of which was to become the most persistent, nagging, and irritating person I had ever met.

I’ll never forget that very first 3 day Internet Marketing Upstart course; there was one very technical minded and overly irritating chap, who insisted on haggling me and just came across as purely argumentative (I actually wanted to give him a snot klap at one stage).

But as time progressed over the year, this same chap opened himself up to a new way of doing business and really started to pay attention to the way I think and run my business, and I watched him evolve to a point where I can honestly say I am humbled by his personal and business growth and I am proud to call him both a mentee and a friend.

However all was not smooth sailing in our relationship even though I had come to respect him, this oke was seriously persistent and at times rather irritating about getting my business to provide SEO services to the local market, and frankly I was having none of it.

Not only had I taken the decision to not take on new clients, but trust me the last thing on earth I wanted to do was provide local business with SEO services, because no disrespect, but it would be a big step down from the minimum $5 million client budget we are used to working with.

But let me tell you if you know Werner Wichmann, he is one persistent and thick skinned sun of a gun. He even had the nerve to turn a private invite (on my personal time nogal) sitting in my jacuzzi under the starts sipping on South Africa’s finest cold beverages into a guilt and pitch session.

I mean he went on, and on and on about how local business need decent transparent and calculable SEO services, and why was I not prepared to help, yadda, yadda yadda, till I think I eventually agreed, either because I was horribly drunk, or simply gatvol of his persistence.

So here we are a few months later and I have put some of the heaviest weight SEO resources you’ll ever encounter around Werner and set him up with the sole agency here in South Africa for this service.

Listen Werner Wichmann is on another level when it comes to being passionate about helping local business position themselves at the top of the search results, and if you are in need of SEO services or in the online market you would be a total fool for not making contact with him.

I am not saying this because he is promoting our services (which speak for themselves in terms of track record) but Werner really has local businesses best interests at heart, and let me tell you he does a crap load of leg work and research to make sure you target the right areas in your market.

So the bottom line is this, if you want to dominate the search results in your market, either give Werner a shout on the contact details listed below, or use this online seo service request form to get him researching on what we can do for you in your market.

I must however warn you that Werner is only taking on a limited number of clients, and he is giving market exclusivity on a first come first serve bases on a keyword specific level… so get in quick or miss out.

Werner Wichmann Contact Details:

Werner Wichmann
Elevate Internet Marketing
Sole Authorised Agent for SEO Rankings – World Class Seo Services!

Skype: werner771
Fax: +27 (0) 86 551 2679
Mobile: +27 (0) 83 388 4909

Click Here for the SEO Service Request Form

I was contacted by one of the Journalists at ITweb (Nicola Mawson) for my comments and these have been published along with the full ITweb story here

Let me know what you think?

Of course your daily weekly and monthly profit and loss (P&L) report is just as important, but what your ROI calculation allows you to do is assess in terms of a percentage what your actual return is.

Generally speaking I won’t promote anything that does not have a consistent ROI in excess of 100% because I know that we have many campaigns that do way more than a 100% return and therefore it does not make sense for me to put my companies’ money into investments that will return less.

So my advice to you if you are engaging in paid advertising, if you are not doing ROI calculations, you’d better start, because profits can be deceiving until you quantify this as an actual return on investment expressed as a percentage.

Over the years I have seen many incorrect formulas for calculating Online advertising return on investment, so I thought that it would be a good idea for me to share with you the correct formula you should be using.

ROI = Total Income Generated less Advertising Spend divided by Advertising Spend Multiplied by 100 = ROI

So for example: If you spend $100 on PPC advertising and generate $300 in affiliate commission then your ROI will be as follows:

$300 – $100 = $200 / $100 * 100 = 200.00%

There are more complex ROI calculation considerations; the top example is pretty easy because as an affiliate the income you receive is net income, whereas when you have your own product, income generated (i.e. sales) is a gross figure and you still need to come back to your net figure before adverting spend to work our your true ROI on margin.

However for most of you the calculation above in the general affiliate model will work just perfectly.

And please leave your questions and comments below, and if you get the chance please rate our ITunes channel so we can increase the exposure for The Internet Marketing Podcast.

As South Africans we are good at many things and this generally makes for a nation full of budding entrepreneurs, but it also this D.I.Y syndrome that is not only killing our potential, but slowly causing a rot within our industry.

In the past 3 months I have noticed dozens, actually make that double dozens of local “internet marketing gurus” popping up all over the show, now in 2010 it seems every second oke and his dog has suddenly become an internet marketing expert stroke “guru” – (shame how pathetic).

Fist we had the property expert turned online marketing guru (no surprise this happened during one of the biggest property recessions in years), and then soon to follow was trust and small business warrior expert turned internet marketing evangelist (all whilst sitting in the north pole like nogal)… and that was just the start…

Now we have Social Media experts who only have like 1000 twitter followers and 10 facebook friends running around claiming they have cracked the social marketing code and they spend their time coaching and teaching others to do the same. “Sies tog” (makes we want to puke in my cereal).

And don’t even get me started on the number of SEO and Adwords companies that have sprung up all over South Africa, who incidentally all outsource their work to the same low grade Indian workers who neither understand nor appreciate our vernacular, and are nothing but $5.00 an hour workers with a $1.50 an hour mentality.

I speak from personal experience when I say this; South Africans know how to bastardize an industry. Having pioneered (that means being first) in every single industry I have been in, I have been copied, plagiarised and cribbed more times than I care to remember.

South Africans are generally lame ass plagiarists in almost every sense of the word, give them half a chance to copy or crib a business, or try and offer the same thing cheaper, and they will.

Perhaps it’s because so many South Africans, especially the white ones (did I just cross a boundary that no one else will) have no choice but to eek out a living in the informal sector (nicely worded as private) that we feel the need to set aside our own creativity and simply try and jump on the bandwagon of emerging trends.

See here is the thing, I want to see our industry growing, its good for all of us, and I want to see new Internet Marketers emerge, but nothing, and I mean nothing pisses me off more than when some wet behind the ears snotty nosed, personality lacking jack ass who has ZERO credentials passes themselves off as an expert… I will actually go out of my way to call you out, piss on your parade and bring you down to earth.

You can tell these yuppie mouthed geeks from a mile, they are the ones mouthing off about being a “guru” the general term used by half wits who don’t realise it stands for “general understanding relatively useless” whose only claim to fame is that their mouths move faster than their brains can process.

I along with many others who are making real money from real consumers (not this internet marketing to the internet market crap), adding real value to online consumers, moving real products to real consumers and forming real relationships with consumers, hold this industry very dear, not only because it is our lively hood, but because we pour our heart and soul into what we do and we have the experience to back it up.

So when I see someone stepping out of line I refuse to hold my punches or mince my words!

My advise to all you budding internet marketers, the first thing you need to do is get rid of the notion that there is a shit load of money to be made selling or teaching internet marketing to other budding internet marketers (you know the ponzi scheme we’ve all been subjected to).

Secondly dispel the notion that this is a get rich quick alternative to your crappy job, life or whatever and realise that like any other business it requires real expertise and real time.

And my last bit of advice and perhaps the most salient advice you will ever get, choose who you listen to and follow very carefully, because good and honest advice is hard to find, and there is no shortage of bad advice.

On that note I would like to introduce you to a blog that has recently been started to help local affiliate marketers, and I 100% support the initiative because it’s coming from someone who is actually making money selling real products online, and he has ZERO interest in selling internet marketing to internet marketers, and is totally genuine about helping others

The blog is run by good friend of mine, client and student who I not only respect immensely as a businessman, but also a human being.

Dale and I met 3 years ago just after I arrived back in South Africa, and for almost a year he literally beat down the door and bombarded his way into my world and business life (in fact it was his persistent calls to my wife that eventually got him in front of me) and since then our relationship and friendship has blossomed through mutual respect and passion for this industry.

Dale will credit me for a large portion his business and personal growth in the online space, but the truth is I have simply been the facilitator and advisor, it has really been his own passion, thirst to learn and ability to take action that has put him in the position he is.

I am both proud and confidant to recommend that you head over to Dale’s Affiliate Marketing blog at http://www.affiliate-program.co.za and take the time to learn from someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

For now I am off to have a strong coffee, and a deep breath…

This is a very time sensitive post (please read and respond urgently) as this post will expire shortly!

The year is almost in full swing for most of us, and if you’ve been paying attention there are only 49 promotional weeks left in the year, so I sure hope you’ve got 2010 well planned out, because if my predications are correct it is going to be the most challenging, hair raising and eventful years we have ever seen in the online space.

Which brings me to my next point, as I sat drawing up my strategy for 2010 in early January, I actually began to feel sorry for the average online business owner, marketer and affiliate, because there is such a dramatic shift and convergence of events coming in 2010, that frankly the average Jo marketer is going to be left wondering what the hell happened.

Now look I don’t want to put the fear of God into you, but having some advanced notice of what to expect in the next 49 promotional weeks (sounds a lot shorter than a year, and in marketing terms it is), can really change the playing field between you and your competitors.

So in light of this, I have decided to consider hosting ~ A TELL ALL ~ Internet Marketing Brunch in Cape Town this February (date and location to be confirmed) where I will share frankly my insights and predications on:

• Traffic And Online Marketing Convergence in 2010
• Social Media Opportunities in 2010
• The Game Changers In Social Media in 2010
• The Current State of Adwords
• The Big Game Changers Coming in Adwords During 2010
• The Current State of SEO
• The Big Game Changers Coming in SEO During 2010
• 2010 Online Survival and Thrival (my own word) Tips
• My Biggest Marketing Strategy for 2010 / 11 Revealed (this is huge)

The format will be a relaxed light brunch, with a few presentations and some real one-on-one time in my headspace for 2010 (which hopefully is worth more than the brunch itself).

If, you’re in Cape Town good for you go ahead and provisionally book your seat below. If you are not in Cape Town then you’ll have to travel in (duh) but I assure you it will be one of the most rewarding and insightful trips you take in 2010, so go ahead and provisionally book your seat below.

The bottom line here is that having advanced notice of what’s to come in 2010 can not only save your skin, but help you outsmart and outpace the competition, which frankly is growing more and more by the day.

So here is the deal:

Below you will find a provisional booking form (please only book if you seriously intend on attending) and once I have an idea on the final numbers, I will book a suitable location, set the dates and then send you an invoice which will need to be paid in full within 7 days.

And for those of you considering brining more than just yourself along, I have included a significant discount (see below) for second, third and fourth attendees under the same invoice details (saves me admin, saves you cash).

THIS EVENT IS FULLY BOOKED!

Getting to know the Internet marketing basic concepts is a good way to start. Generally, the whole concept of marketing with the use of the Web revolves around two major processes. It starts out with the introduction of the product with the use of a website and followed by making the website popular all throughout the whole virtual world. These two play significant roles in making sure that the Internet ends up serving the organization instead of the other way around.

To start with, the products are introduced to the online market with the use of their websites. These sites are created mainly for the purpose of making all information concerning the product available to online users, and most consumers like the convenience they find in being able to place their orders or actually purchase online.

After the first part, the website is then made available to the rest of the world through the Internet. There are many advertising companies that are already accessible online. Consulting services also work around the same set of responsibilities as they work on preparing the company’s advertisements.

Another thing to be fully wary of is the size of the business. Although most internet marketing companies can deal with any kinds of products, there are different strategies that can work for the companies depending on their size. Obviously, smaller businesses have smaller assets and budgets for whatever endeavor they need to take to expand the business.

Like in any other investments made, it is always important to know where it is placed on. When selecting the firm to go with for internet marketing purposes, one should go for firms that can be fully trusted. After all, it is all about the success of the business thereon. It pays to be sure that the company dealt with has ample knowledge and capacity to do what they are supposed to do.

The final decision is always hard to get to. It requires one to be fully knowledgeable in order to assure the reliability of the investment being taken.

The closing bell newsletter started 4 years ago as a medium for me to communicate notable events in the online market and within our company, to our clients, suppliers, partners, staff and other stakeholders, so in the spirit of tradition let’s sit back, and take a nostalgic walk back over 2009.

Without a doubt the single biggest driver in the online market during 2009 was the recession, and exactly as I predicted back in my closing bell newsletter of 2008, the recession proved to be an incredible opportunity for the online market, as savvy consumers turned to the internet for pre-purchase research, comparison shopping, and convenience.

Despite all the offline economic doom and gloom, e-commerce sales were up 13.7% in 2009 compared to 2008 on Cyber Monday (which of course the ceremonial kick-off of the online holiday shopping season), and this is the 3rd successive double digit growth curve in as many years.

Even more interesting is that in 2009 the average dollar amount spent by consumers per online order rose by 38.2%, from $130.24 to $180.03, and additionally per order, consumers purchased 30% more items at checkout in 2009 than they did in 2008.

And if you have any doubt about the future of business online, consider that this Cyber Monday saw a staggering 7,666,119 million visitors per minute between the top 1000 online stores, resulting in a whopping 4.3 million sales a minute as reported and verified by CNN.

I have always maintained that a recession is nothing more than a shift in balances, and only the naive would believe that the money has disappeared.

The online market has proven exactly that, not only taking away from the traditional business space, but bucking the trend and showing growth in one of the biggest economic downturns in recorded history.

It is safe to say that we are no longer on the edge of opportunity, but rather fully entangled and engaged in one the single biggest business opportunities you and I will ever see in our lifetimes.

As a company we have continued to aggressively, passionately, and logically pursue growth. We have reinvested heavily into improving, developing and creating systems to meet the demands in the years ahead.

60% of our net profit has been ploughed back into systems staffing, training and product development, not only because we realise that to remain the worlds leading internet marketing company we have to reinvest, but because we believe in the future of the online market.

We have progressively turned global, thanks in part to our brilliant digital communication engineers who deserve an immense amount of credit for designing and building a one of a kind system from the ground up that connects our company hub with staff, clients, agents, partners, suppliers, and consumers spread across 17 different countries.

As our own online portfolio continues to expand along with our clients, suppliers and staff, we remain forever loyal to our core founding mission statement as we head into an exhilarating and challenging 2010.

We will continue to hire the best staff, using the best technology, investing in the best resources, associate with the best clients and partners, and above all, we will remain committed to being the best at what we do.

Above all else we will always stick to the basics of business, and continue to place more value in our relationships with people than in any other part of our business.

As 2010 summons a change, and a dramatic shift in business, and economics, I would like wish everyone associated with Justin Harrison Marketing a prosperous new year.

I would also like to extend a very heartfelt and special thank you to all my closest staff, management team, advisors, clients, suppliers and partners who have become more than business associates, but people I am honoured to call my friends, may we all march to new heights in 2010.

Firstly I must point out that the FTC guidelines have not been updated for over 30 years. This update in policy is both necessary and logical, and the fact that the FTC has now decided to focus heavily on the online direct marketing channel provides further confirmation of just how much the online market has grown and matured.

Secondly, since the FTC guidelines are exclusive to publishers of information who are based in the USA, these guidelines do not directly affect NON-USA publishers, however since these guidelines focus on transparency and full discourse which benefits the consumer, I would hence forth suggest that abide by them, even if you don’t serve the USA market or run a registered USA concern.

So What Is The Major Update, And Why?

Basically the FTC has noted (as have we) how companies and online marketers have deceived or manipulated consumer opinion.

A classic example of this would be Google giving out hundreds or Android phones to bloggers in return for favourable blog articles or comments from these bloggers. The consumer being none the wiser sees this as an endorsement and as such being blissfully unaware that these “endorsements” are provided for “material gain” are swayed in opinion by these clearly biased pieces of content (blog posts, comments etc).

An example closer to home would be the traditional “review style affiliate offer” where affiliates create review sites for specific products, and then don’t make the consumer aware that they are being compensated by way of an affiliate commission for creating this review. In this case the consumer is blissfully unaware of the material gain and interest of the reviewing affiliate, which in most cases is responsible for swaying the consumers final purchase decision.

Accordingly the new FTC ruling is aimed at ensuring that there is disclosure between parties when the content being provided is incentivised by some from of material connection.

So How Do You Comply?

Firstly don’t think of it as having to comply, think of it as being open and transparent with your consumers, prospects and clients. Don’t just copy the standard text I advise you use below, adhere to it and make it part of your business value system.

The bottom line is this, if there is any “material connection” attached to any information that you put out for consumers to access, clearly state this on your website, and depending on the nature of the promotion, article, or content I would advise having some form default text either on your about page or your legal terms page, and on then actual post itself.

It is important to understand that “material connection” to content means that if there is any material gain being provided in relation to the content that it should be disclosed.

So the obvious one is if you are promoting an affiliate product is to disclose that you will get a commission or some form of compensation for providing the offer to your audience.

A less obvious example would be if you are selling a product and you encourage testimonials by running some form of incentive such as a competition for the best testimonial. If you decide to publish these testimonials, you should disclose that these testimonials where obtained by incentivising your clients to do so.

The bottom line, if any material connection exists, i.e. something (money, product, discount etc) changes hands you need to disclose this on a case by case basis.

However I would still place the following text on your websites about us or legal terms pages to make sure you are always covered:

For Bloggers And Affiliates:

[YOUR WEBSITE URL] is an independent third party content publisher, which may on occasion receive some form of compensation for content published, be it in the way of free product samples, money, and, or other form of compensation. As an independent third party content publisher, every effort is made to ensure that the information on this website remains as impartial and as accurate as possible.

For Product Sellers:

[YOUR WEBSITE URL] may on occasion provide various incentives, be it in the way of free product samples, money, and, or other form of compensation to independent third party content publishers to endorse, review and promote our products, however we remain committed to allowing these independent third parties to provide their honest feedback and opinions on our products and services.

Conclusion:

Honestly and integrity go hand in hand with this ruling and frankly there will always be people who find ways to get around and manipulate the new guidelines… my advice just open you heart and mind and do business the way you know you should!

In many cases they may be looking for a consumer report or customer ratings on a particular product or perhaps are looking for more information pertaining to the product. When an individual browses the Internet for information on a product or service they are provided with a list of websites that contain information pertaining to the subject they were searching for. Typically this list of websites will provide information or possibly company links pertaining to the subject.

In many cases the information that is provided on the Internet is made available by the business that deals with related products. The company that owns the website will hire an Internet marketing company to create articles pertaining to subjects to correspond with their products. They will post these articles on their website along with product information or links to the product website.

The consumer browses for a particular subject and enters an associated website and may decide to read an article on the subject they are interested in and find an ad that pertains to an associated product. For instance, someone is interested in bass fishing; they may browse the web for articles pertaining to bass fishing. The website they select may contain fishing tips and promotional material for new bass fishing equipment.

Companies that utilize Internet marketing realize that the majority of consumers browsing the Internet are likely to select a website from among the first four or five that are listed on the results page. Consequently if an Internet business’ website is not listed till the second page then chances are the consumers will never see the website. In order to make their website appear towards the top of the list they will utilize Internet marketing strategies that caused the search engine to retrieve their website to appear toward the top of list thereby providing exposure to the potential customer.

11 Years ago I made a promise to myself, a promise so unrealistic to others at the time, that I was the laughing stock of every friend and family member I had, but for the last 11 years I have stuck to my guns and chipped away 18 hours a day at my goal with sheer determination and relentlessness.

Over the last 11 years I have bent and crawled my way to this goal, from one failure to the next I have grown stronger, more determined and more relentless in my pursuit of this goal.

The more people laughed at me and shot me down, the more determined I became, and today the culmination of 11 years of fighting for every inch in this world resonated in one glorious moment of triumph.

My goal was to do 50 Million US dollars in online sales in a single year, and just over an hour ago my 2009 sales reports reflected exactly that.

I celebrated the moment with a quiet cup of coffee and a few moments of reflection, and in this time I realised that I will never be able to fully impart this feeling of triumph or the hard fought journey that has led me here, hell most people still just don’t get who I am or what I am about, and that’s ok.

But for those of you who have dreams and goals bigger than what all the people in your life can accept as part of their reality, let me encourage you to push through the glass ceiling that everyone else sets for themselves, and never ever settle for anything less than what you are prepared to promise yourself.

The last 11 years has been one hell of a journey and adventure, and I have learnt more about myself and life in general on this journey than most people will discover in an entire lifetime, and for those of you who are as ambitious and driven as I am, I thought that some of these lessons might resonate with you.

Although I am pretty dogmatic about my rules of engagement, I have come to learn that for every lesson and rule there is a contradicting rule or lesson.

For example the rule of “taking care of the pennies and letting the pounds take care of themselves” is totally contradicted by what many deem their formula for success which is “penny wise and pound foolish”, which leads me to my first rule and the first lesson you should take to heart.

1. Adapt Or Die:

The most successful entrepreneur is the one who can apply the most relevant critical thinking and adapt accordingly.

2. Start Small And Grow Organically:

You cannot force growth but you must position for growth. Always start small, plan big, and don’t ever confuse your current actions with your future goals.

3. Business Is All About Relationships:

Never make the mistake of thinking that relationships are disposable, or that you can hide behind some tool (like the internet).

4. Put The Business Needs Above Your Own:

Forget holidays in the sun and all the material crap you’ve ever desired, when you go into business be prepared to put yourself at the end of the queue, and if you can’t do that, then get the hell out of business now!

5. Set Big Goals And Break These Down Into Plans:

The difference between those who succeed and those that wish to succeed is that those that succeed not only set goals, but they break those goals down into action plans.

6. Be Relentless In Pursuit Of Your Goals:

You will fail, others will shoot you down, and you will endure suffering, get over it and get used to it, nobody gives a damn anyway, so stick to the one thing you can control which is the relentless pursuit of your goal.

7. Don’t Make Excuses And Never Justify:

Never ever make excuses or justify anything to anyone, let your actions speak for you.

10. Take Responsibility:

As an entrepreneur you’re the end of the line, if you can’t take responsibility for everything, then get the hell out of business now!

11. Budget, Budget, Budget:

Know your numbers control your budget, and spend your entire waking life obsessing about your budget. If you can’t take financial responsibility, then get the hell out of business now!

12. Always Be Marketing:

The most important function of any business is to always be brining in more business, and you should always be marketing to ensure this happens.

13. The 80/20 Rule:

80 percent of your time and effort should go to those tasks which generate you the best return on investment.

14. Stack And Leverage All Your Efforts:

Business is about leveraging past results to grow future results, and the best way to do this is to stack one result on top of the next. For example don’t drive one sale out client, drive lifetime value (sales) out of a client.

15. Time Is Not A Renewable Resource:

Spend it wisely and always remember the 80/20 rule when it comes to managing your time and your efforts.

17. Hire The Best, Pay The Most:

There are plenty places to save money in a business, advisors, staff and suppliers of service is the one area you should never compromise, always hire the best and be prepared to pay the most.

18. Kick Quitters And Losers To The Curb:

You will become who you associate with, and the quickest way to become a loser yourself is to hang around other losers. Creep your way up the business social ladder if you must, but never ever associate with losers and quitters.

19. Give Back:

Give back and give back generously both in time and money. As an entrepreneur you must demonstrate to the universe that you are willing to serve others before yourself.

20. Forget Hobbies They Are A Distraction:

For the true entrepreneur the business is the hobby and anything else is simply a necessary distraction to refresh and refuel the energy levels. If you can’t make business your hobby, get the hell out of business now!

21. Live Modestly:

Learn to live way below your means to ensure you sleep well at night knowing you spend far less than you earn, and that you don’t attract the unnecessary attention of those who cling only to your material possessions.

22. Get a Mentor:

Don’t ever think you are too big or clever to learn, find someone who has done what you want to do and then cling to them like your life depends on it!

23. Take Action:

Talk is cheap, money buys the whiskey!

P.S. There will be no further podcasts until we receive at least 10 comments, so go ahead and leave your comment below now!

Affiliate marketing expands where and how often your product will be seen on the internet. Your products will not only be promoted on your own company website, but also on other company websites. The more websites there are promoting your products, the more people will be exposed to your products, the farther your advertising dollar will stretch, giving you more “bang for the buck” in terms of gaining new customers.

As with any internet marketing program, the goal of an affiliate program is to get users to the business website and to have them make a purchase. Among the common affiliate marketing tools you might want to consider are banner ads promoting your business that affiliates place on their websites or email templates that you provide to your affiliate who then sends them out to their own customer base.

The main role of an affiliate is to send traffic to your site.

This is done by focusing on what the user wants in terms of content, delivering that content, and then encouraging the user to take the active step of visiting your site where they will buy.

Website visitors who are directed to you from affiliate sites have a good bit of information about your products and services in mind and are already primed to buy when they get to your website. They are already inclined to buy when they arrive at your website. At that point making the actual sale is the easy part.

A key fact is that website visitors who come to you from affiliate sites are often people who would not have found you through the usual ways. Sometimes they are customers who would have found you eventually, but only after spending a good bit of time looking. Affiliate marketing makes web shopping a win-win by putting customers ready to buy with you, the seller.

Once you’ve decided that your company needs to get on board with affiliate marketing, you face the question of choosing which service provider to go with in getting your affiliate marketing program going. Obviously you want the best, but with so many companies out there, how do you know who the best is?

At first it might seem overwhelming, but it’s actually not a complicated process once you stop to look at it. You should select the service that has a solid reputation with known companies, especially ones in your particular business area, because they will have a knowledge of what you require and an track record of success so you will be able to put your confidence in the fact that the program they come up with will be the best available for your particular products and services.

Ideal keyword density is something which can never be achieved or is almost under scanner for producing the best results while performing web search. Even the experts in the fields of Search Engine Optimization and actual webmaster, the most accurate density of keyword has always been debatable. However, we must strive hard to narrow down the keyword search to the maximum close requirement to ensure that the HIT’s produce by search engines are quite relevant.

Keeping in mind the above view point, it is not necessary to fix the density of keyword for the website or a webpage. However, it is always recommended that it should not be too low which might not produce the relevant gain or should not be too high which might be considered as spamming and can attract legal proceedings. The keyword density should be measured in percentage and must be as close to maximum.

By keeping the ideal (not too low or not too high) keyword density, the search engines would be able to relate the search to the site more quickly and will also facilitate higher search ranking. However, it is required that the site should have minimal keywords to ensure that the search is relevant and also will avoid the possibility of having multiple keywords on the site being considered as keyword stuffing the calls for the site ban.

There are many tools, guides and help available on the word wide web which enables the webmasters and SEO’s to determine the density of keyword for the keyword sets. By using the simple research using the correct keyword on the web, you should be able to find many of these useful resources on the web. Keyword similar to the requirement may generate irrelevant or in-accurate results and would be simple waste of your precious time and efforts. As mentioned, using the correct keyword is the foremost requirement for achieving the desired results.

You just need to provide your site URL in any of these easily accessible online tools and the tool will further analyze the density of the keyword and its phrases which are a part of the text on the site. Basically, by using these tools, you would be able to understand how many times a keyword has appeared on the webpage and also would be able to determine the percentage.

So, let’s say that you have a site, you have a product, and you’ve got all the processes set up to get your product to customers once you have them. How do you get your customers?

Well, before you even try to get them, you need to know who your customers are. What age group are you going for? What gender? What are their common interests, and how do they find sites like yours?

At the beginning, you need to guess a lot of these things. But as your business matures, you an collect information about your audience and use that to figure out where your appeal is and who you should be marketing to.

For example, let’s say you sell games about ponies and horses. Your biggest base of customers will probably be young girls, although you can aim for more realistic games as well to market to true experts in the horsemanship field. It’s a reasonable assumption to guess that your customers will also be interested in other games about tending to animals and simulating farms.

With a firm idea of what your customer is, you can now take the steps to market to them and attract them to your site. Here’s a few of the more popular strategies for marketing online that have been shown to work time and time again.

Press releases are things that can spread quickly on the web through careful linking and placement in high profile sites. A press release that is actually informative and interesting, rather than just a loud biased ad, will attract more people than an overly positive commercial.

Pay per click mechanisms can also be very useful for getting traffic to your site right away through simple, honest bribery. All the major search engines such as Yahoo and Google are good places to start with, and once you’ve figured out what works for you, you can make your pay per click campaign more sophisticated and effectively targeted.

Search engine optimization, often abbreviated as SEO, is critical to almost any site these days. Use the right keywords at the right density and you can be ranked high in no time, making it easy for interested customers to find you with a simple search.

Building a nice web of links from reputable sites will increase your traffic in and of itself, while also boosting your ranking for search engines. Links from good sites are taken into account by all the good search engines, so if you go without, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

If appropriate, you can also try writing articles with links to your site and then submitting them to various article databases. If the articles are quality work, you can get quoted as a reference in various places, too, which further spreads your site around.

As a last option for spreading links across the web, you can try link exchanges. Try to do three-way link exchanges for increased exposure, and make use of exchanges relating to the keywords you’re using for your SEO marketing. Take advantage of every little marketing technique available to you and you can rip through your industry like a storm.

After you create a good user friendly website that promotes your business you have to come up with a marketing plan that will help you to identify people that would more than likely buy from your site or who would find the content of your webpage to be relevant and useful.

Identifying potential customers for business or potential visitors to your website can best achieved through the use of a marketing plan. A marketing plan will allow you to be able to find some of these people by asking some simple questions about who are the people you’re trying to reach, what are their online viewing habits, and what search words are they likely to use in trying to find the information that they want.

Once you get an idea about the potential customers that can be directed your site the next thing that you must do is to drive as many of these individuals to your website as possible. One of the first things that you can do is to start by creating a buzz for your website. This buzz can be generated through the use of online social communities and online article sites.

Online communities are very popular places on the internet and they allow millions of people all throughout the country and the world to come together to communicate and to exchange ideas. By connecting into the online communities many people can now identify some of their possible consumer base. Also, the popular online communities can help you to communicate directly with people to see if they would be likely candidates for your site.

PPC (pay per click) programs can be set up to drive people to your site. This type of method is accomplished by buying advertising spots for a search engine about your business or site. This method is great if you have the funds to back it up. You can use SEO (search engine optimization) techniques to get your site recognized through the use of search terms.

Simply click on the link below to secure your place on the webinar now.

Click Here to Register

The Exchange of Links

Exchanging links among the web site users is a good practice to increase traffic (not done for SEO). This is kind of reference by a user to a website which he or she finds useful and drops a link of the website at a relevant forum or social networking site. This helps in getting traffic along with the positive rating also. However the Link Exchange should happen between the relevant sites and not at every second website which can make your web link appear as a spam link.

The Exchange of Traffic

By viewing pages or web sites of other users whose content can be used by you and theirs by you, you can find a good visiting group for your site. For example if your website provides information about tourism spots at a place or state then the traffic can easily be exchanged with a site that provides information about the hotels in that state or place. Moreover you can visit other sites, suggest. Discuss something there; drop a link back to your site. This is an effective way to generate traffic.

Article Writing

One can write articles about the things you know and are comfortable in writing about. You can post your articles, which should be unique and precise at different sites on the Internet and again drop a link back to your site. If your articles are good and unique, definitely people will like them and visit your web site frequently.

Newsletter

Starting a newsletter is also another option to generate traffic. You can discuss topics, write them on your own or just take them from Internet. For this you need a group of trusted web users who can visit your web site and read, discuss and subscribe to the newsletter started by you.

Online networking sites and Forums

All you need to register a forum or a social networking site, register there, take part in the ongoing discussions, leave a link that redirects users to your web site and your job is done. You can join as many forums as you want. The popularity of your website on these forums depends upon the activeness you show in these forums. More is the activeness shown by you, more is the trust gained by you and your website.

This opens up huge opportunities for local business, and by local I mean the businesses that only target a province or region. Secondly the introduction of Google street maps in South Africa in the near future will allow South African advertisers to target customers in the same way we have been doing it in the USA for years, which is to bring business in at street level (very targeted).

Google also a while back introduced the ability to target certain demographics, for example male vs. female and various age groups, all of which is finally opening up the Google Adwords landscape here in South Africa.

As an advertiser who runs both local Google Adwords accounts here in South Africa and Adwords accounts in the UK and the USA, I have to say its been frustrating not being able to make use of the same functionality that has been available for years in my international accounts, but the good news is that it all seems to be coming to an end right now.

On a more sombre note, the South African Adwords landscape which has been dominated purely by the size of advertisers budgets and how, much they are willing to pay per click is about to change drastically, and the recent functionality will allow savvy and educated Adwords players to rip the market wide open and attain clicks for far less cents on the rand.

Which brings me to my next point, at the end of this year I will be holding a VERY exclusive Adwords training camp in Durban, where I will be teaching some of the most cutting edge Adwords strategies ever developed.

This Adwords training camp will be strictly for serious Adwords advertisers and the addition of the newly added functionality to local Adwords accounts means that those that attend this end of year Adwords training camp are in for a real treat, because the stuff I plan on sharing is known to only a handful of people in the industry.

So watch this space!

1. A common mistake that affiliate marketers make is that they don’t develop their own website for the affiliate programs. They join an affiliate program and begin to refer all of the traffic directly to the sales page itself.

This will work if you get enough traffic to that page. As a matter of fact you can really sell just about anything online if you get enough traffic to a website. That however, does not make it the right way to do it.

2. Cramming your website with way too many products and programs is a very common mistake that’s made by many affiliate marketers. Create your own site, but make it appealing to your visitors. Their site lacks focus and can be confusing to people who visit. All this does is lead to people to leaving their site without so much as giving a mailing address due to lack of focus.

3. Not creating a mailing list of your own is a very basic error you can make in affiliate marketing. The future of your business may just be in the email marketing list if done correctly.

The best focus you can make on your Internet marketing business is to increase the number of subscribers to your mailing list daily. This mailing list will become an asset for future business and can be a great way for you to develop long-term relationships with your subscribers.

4. A key mistake and the worst way to build successful internet affiliate marketing programs is to pick a product line without doing the correct market research. Just because there are literally millions of products you can sell online, that doesn’t make them all profitable. The only way you are going to make any money online is to get yourself into markets where people are currently spending money.

In conclusion, these are four things that I see being done incorrectly when it comes to Internet marketing affiliate programs. Most mistakes can be corrected in time by anyone willing to learn and develop an affiliate marketing business, but it is far simpler to just avoid the mistakes in the first place.

So here is this week’s podcast, with lots of “beep outs”, because I hijacked the “Name and Shame” section of the show tackle (OK more like assault) what most people are doing wrong when it comes to email marketing.

Take a listen, enjoy and don’t forget to comment (you’ll see we have a brand new intense debate comment system installed, so don’t be scared to try it)

First and foremost, social media marketing is free. Many social networking interfaces come at no cost, unless the marketer seeks exclusivity on part of a site. Everything else (posts, comments, responses, etc.) is free, and infinitely cost-effective.

Second, you are tapping into niche markets. Blogs, forums, and other social marketing media are directed at certain groups that can relate to their theme. A webmaster pushing his technology site can join a technology-related forum and open the floodgates to a community of interested clients and customers. You needn’t promote to the broader group, many of whom aren’t engaged in the product, but instead you can market to those who have a stake in what you’re selling.

Third, free visual media is available. YouTube and other social media tools enable free promotion via videos. Videos are the most effective way to promote a product. Customers see and are captivated by images of products, and thus they’re encouraged to buy.

Fourth, social media marketing offers personal accounts and discussions. Satisfied clients use these social media tools to promote in their own way: word of mouth. Testimonials, positive reviews, and impromptu discussions about the company and its products are riddled across these sites as you read. This is yet another means to advertise and market offerings, and it does so with the support of happy customers. Potential consumers establish confidence in your products by reading these unbiased accounts.

Lastly, these social networking interfaces can provide incentives. Many users on these networks are rewarded just for participating through affiliate programs. Marketers incorporate these programs into their personal space as a way to provide product updates and they make money when consumers take a deeper look. The above reasons are just part of the great, unique promotion solution that is social media marketing. A multitude of users will encounter your offerings, and you’re doing it in a highly cost-effective way. The Internet spans the entire world, and with that fact your potential client base is infinite.

This is by no means one of those lame ass testimonial videos, Shea really grills him on the ins and outs of the program, and prospective members can really learn a lot from this interview.

If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section below and Werner will most certainly be on hand to answer your questions.

Number one? It’s free. Most social networking sites are free these days and thus, very cost-efficient. Comments, posts, messages, all can be sent for free.

Number two? Using these networking sites is a great way to hone in on niche markets. It is easy to find different groups and organizations by looking at their networking page. This allows you to advertise to those who would use your goods and services more frequently. If a company selling baby clothes finds a group of individuals that have created a mom and baby type site, this will allow the baby clothes company to sell to a huge array of new customers that are focused on the product trying to be marketed already because they are moms! This type of focused marketing tool is amazingly valuable.

Number three? Many social networking sites have free media tools such as YouTube, which allows its members to post their own free videos and viewers to download them for free. Videos are by far, the easiest and most effective way to market products and services. Potential customers are just a click away and videos make very easy to get someone interested in a product.

Number four? Social Media Marketing allows for personal testimonials of products, reviews, and other methods of discussion that help tremendously for businesses and individual marketers. What better way to sell a product than to let the product speak for itself?

The last point to be noted is that these social networking sites can create incentives for participating through affiliate programs. This helps marketers to update their product when necessary and to make more money while consumers research their product further. In conclusion, Social Media Marketing offers a cost-effective way of reaching a world market coupled with the ability to pinpoint that market through networking. The possibilities are endless with this amazing tool

Luis as usual goes about his name and shame, this time he targets a new player in the ISP space, and… ugggmmm a few comically sensitive buttons are pressed along the way

So go ahead and take a listen, and don’t forget to discuss the content on the podcast by adding your comments below the podcast and engaging with other internet marketers just like you.

Please add your comments below and discuss the show….

Internet marketing is a competitive business. Companies selling on the Internet compete for consumer attention in hopes of increasing sales of their goods or services. Some individuals add to their household’s income by operating an Internet business from home. Marketing a product online allows a business to attract a wider audience than they would otherwise reach through costly print or televisions ads. This channel also allows them to market and sell to consumers located anywhere throughout the world. Online retailing is a fiercely competitive business. Google recently established new guidelines for marketing products and services on their website.

“Word of mouth” advertising has evolved from sharing opinions with others face-to-face, by phone, or through print media, to sharing that opinion, simultaneously, with hundreds or thousands of people through internet blogs and social networking sites. At the University of Massacheussets, Dartmouth’s Center for Marketing conducted research that determined 51% of blog content has become a critical force in the market.

Most major newspapers now have blogs on their websites. These blogs can attract greater interest in online news sources, bringing them more into the mainstream.

Businesses can keep tabs on their competition by reading blogs about their competitors and their products. The internet has also changed the manner in which we store and share photos. One no longer needs an expensive digital camera or expertise in using camera equipment to take and share photos. Most newer cell phones can take a reasonably good-quality photo that can be uploaded and shared instantly on the internet.

The experience of interacting and communicating with others has become even more enjoyable and simple through social media technology. Most people enjoy interacting and sharing opinions through the various forms of social media. Because it has become so popular and entertaining, some people even report they have become addicted to social media networking. It is no wonder that more and more people are utilizing and benefiting from social media technology.

And please add your comments below and discuss the show.

As I type this post, the SEO IS DEAD report has been downloaded over 10,500 times, and of those 10, 500 downloads just on 45% of them have resulted in actual upgrade sales to the backend video where I provide a detailed 32 minute video focused on the step by step compliance required by Google’s next update.

The project has far exceeded my expectations, however I am not totally surprised because I did a great deal market research, planning, and more importantly spent a HUGE amount of time ensuring this is a world class product.

The campaign has not all been smooth sailing though, there have been major problems along the way not to mention a severe backlash of anger from certain outraged community members.

Its been one of the my most exciting campaigns in recent years, more because of the sensitivity and high strung emotions around the Internet Marketing community, which I am not really used to because my business focus has always been on products outside of the internet marketing space.

Its been a severe learning curve, and by virtue of numbers a resounding success, with my biggest challenge moving forward being the decision to either close the project and retain its exclusivity, or continue allowing people access and letting to project truly go mainstream (I’m still wresting with the idea).

I have truly pushed boundaries with this project, and the process flow (or funnel as some call it) from start to finish has maximised every opportunity, and to my mind is the single greatest contributor to the overall success.

Now as I said, I am planning on hosting a free off the cuff webinar where I will discuss the process flow, marketing strategies, lessons learnt and field questions from attendees.

The only requirement to be part of this free webinar is that you add your comments below and subscribe to the comments by checking the “Notify me of follow-up comments via e-mail” option when you post your comment, so that I can notify you of the exact date and time of the webinar.

So go ahead and add your comments below and check the “Notify me of follow-up comments via e-mail” option when you post your comment to be part of this Free Webinar.

Submitting articles that only have a purpose of using a keyword or to monopolize a particular niche is not enough. The real success using article marketing comes from an understanding of what really works. The articles need to be written in a way that the readers will be encouraged to click thru to your website. By placing a useless article on any website you can guarantee that you will not gain any traffic by leaving the link to your site in the article. The real traffic comes from people who actually read the article and are interested enough in what you have to say to actually click the link to your site.

Most of the article directory sites will demand articles of high quality that offer something for the readers. It may take more time to produce an article of quality but without it you are not going to see a change in your websites traffic or its rank within the search engines.

Think about what you want to say to the reader and what information you would like them to have. The better quality your article is the better chance you have of it leading to traffic on your website. The majority of website owners who are using article marketing are just looking at it as a way to create backlinks to their site. If you do not look at it as a way to increase traffic and your reputation you will be wasting the majority of the effectiveness of the article marketing technique.

You will gain backlinks even with a bad article, if the directory sites will accept it that is. You can use keywords to raise the chances of your site being in the top search results with the search engines. But if you fail to create quality articles that offer good information to your readers you will lose your chances to build website traffic and gain profit from a good reputation. It is always better to use strategies to their fullest extent to see the best results.

I had no idea what a backlash reaction the SEO community at large would provide. Already the bloggershere, twitter and facebook are awash with SEO people claiming that the SEO IS DEAD report is “rubbish and sensationalism”.

Notably most of these comments come from SEO individuals with pseudonyms like “Gun Ho SEO” and “SEO BOB”, and very entertaining is the fact that none of them have actually read the contents of the report, let alone accessed it.

You see the controversy is based around the name of my report, originally my report was going to be titled “TRADITIONAL SEO IS DEAD”, however that seemed a little harder to roll off the tongue than “SEO IS DEAD” and ever the marketer I knew that a little controversy would help move people past the yeah I need to look at it stage VS OH MY GOD I HAVE TO READ THIS stage.

Is it controversial? … Hell yes! … is it brilliant Marketing?… 4117 Downloads to date tells me it is!

Now look I know that whenever you tell a whole industry that their business model is built on quick sand and that their very lively hood is threatened, you’re goanna piss a few people off…

… but please all you half wit, half baked SEO’s out there that have not taken the time to read the report, but feel the need to shout the loudest as if you really know what’s going on… do us all a favour and climb down off your high horse and read the report before you comment.

Already much of what I have discussed in the report has started to happen, in fact if your Google Perry Marshals latest post about how affiliate review sites have been slapped in the last week, you’ll realise this is no game.

To all the SEO companies that have accessed the SEO IS DEAD report, many of whom have actually called me personally to thank me for this timely information, well done on realising you need to change your business and service models accordingly!

Anyway before I get sidetracked and go on a rant about all the bullshit that gets promoted in the IM space, I have, let’s just say become “quite attached” to the Internet Marketing Upstart group, and my wife (who arranges all our events) and I have come to consider them very much part of our extended family.

And just like any family, there is the red headed step child who you love to hate, the star of the group, and bunch of noisy little buggers in between, not to mention the up and comer who is fighting his older brother for first place all the time… it’s a real little family unit with a bunch of dynamics.

Over the last 8 months I have worked tirelessly to break many of the bad habits that they all have learned along the way. And although many of my teaching methods are sometimes a little unconventional, I can see that they are all starting to really get it.

I am not one to brag or boast about my own success, but I have built up a very large business on very simple principals, many of which require an extraordinary amount of self discipline, sacrifice and dedication, and I think everyone of the Internet Marketing Upstart members will attest to this.

Last week Friday we held a workshop in Durban, which was held to pass on many of the important updates for the program, many of which are outlined in the SEO IS DEAD report, and basically to review everyone’s progress.

And because I am a BIG believer in playing as hard as you work, I put together a few events to not only entertain members, but also impart some life lessons, core to which is my belief that you can “sleep when you are dead”, because lets face it this life is short and you have to squeeze the most of each day.

We broke bread and shared a few dinners filled with laughter and engaging chit chat, we hit the Durban casinos and some of us learnt the art of Black Jack and card counting (SHHH – sorry Suncoast Internet Marketers love numbers), we dangled 40 meters above the ground and slid our way around Africa’s longest set of fufi slides, then we ended it all off on the final evening with a moonlight dinner and spa experience that was to die for.

One thing people will tell you about coming to see me in Durban is that you’ll work hard, play hard, and get very little sleep doing it all, but you’ll certainly walk away with a bounce in your step ready and armed to succeed… and you know why… because success is contiguous!

Anyway here are some pictures from out get together:

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P.S. I might be taking on a few new members in the next 2/3 months, so if this is something that interests you add your comments below and let me know.

Submitting an article or many article to article directory sites is one step to becoming more popular but if it is done incorrectly the results will be disappointing. One of the reasons to submit articles to these directories is to receive backlinks. Google and other search engines will look at backlinks as votes for your site. Having a link that leads back to your website from another site is considered a one way link or backlink.

When you submit an article the directory site will allow you one resource box per submission. In this resource box you are able to write a short introduction of yourself and your company as well as leave a backlink to your website. The point of the backlink is not only to improve positioning in the search engines but to have the reader click through to your site after reading the article.

The best technique for article marketing is to create a well thought out and informative article that will compel the reader to click on to your site to get more information. The article should be related to your site or what you have to offer and be of use to the reader. If your website is for rehab services then having an article that talks about the affects of drug abuse would be considered appropriate and useful to the reader.

The article should contain information that the reader needs or wants but leave them wanting more. If you are unable to create an article that will interest the reader then you will never receive anyone who will click thru and therefore not have a change in your web traffic results.

Many website owners will hire a professional writer to create these articles for them. The writer should have knowledge of what article marketing is and how it works. The writer also needs a strong grasp on the English language and be able to produce a well written, error free article that draws in the readers.

Many article directory sites will reject an article if they feel it is not high enough quality for their site. In order to not have to re-write the article many times, the quality should be carefully planned out before writing begins. Figure out what you want to say and what information you want to get across. Make sure you leave room for the reader to need more and never forget to leave your link behind.

Today is one of those rushed posts, so the odd grammar and spelling mistake aside, I wanted to make sure you get a quick status update on what’s happening around the SEO IS DEAD report.

The SEO IS DEAD has actually been ready for the past 3 weeks, however I delayed releasing the report because I wanted to cross check some of my own research with one of Google smaller (but significant) algorithm updates which happened a week ago before I released the report. In this business the facts really are in the smaller details.

The good news is all the facts and research tie in perfectly, and I am now confidant that it’s the right time to release the SEO IS DEAD REPORT

Now I don’t say this light heartedly, and those of you who know me well will vouch for the fact that when I make a bold statement about something, you can bet your life on the fact that not only is that statement true and factual without compromise, but that it is backed up by comprehensive research and testing.

So here is the bottom line, the SEO rules are changing drastically, and I am afraid most online business are already falling way behind, and with even stricter control and a change of pace and mindset over at the king of search you can bet your last penny that things are going to get even tougher if you don’t understand the rules of engagement.

Now this is not some pre-sales tripe and hype, these are the facts. There is a major Google update looming, similar or worse to the infamous Florida Update and the online space is in for a major wake up call when this happens. In fact my own research shows that 92% of all top ranked websites sites sampled are not only at risk, but have a 85% chance of completely loosing their rankings.

One the one hand this spells disaster, especially if you are actively working on your SEO profile, however on the other hand if you are well informed then this also represents a major opportunity… at the end of the day the choice is entirely yours to make!

I will be releasing the SEO IS DEAD REPORT on Tuesday 21 July 2009 at 9:30am GMT+2 and the announcement will be made to my blog email subscriber list (currently 8,517 people subscribed), and to my twitter account (currently 12,017 people subscribed), so needless to say this I expect all copies of the report to go VERY QUICKLY.

So if you want a copy of the report, make sure you watch my blog, your email address or my twitter account on Tuesday 21 July 2009 at 9:30am GMT+2

Now as a final note, I am looking for a few beta testers to test out the system before we officially go live, so if you are interested in getting your hands on this report early, simply add your comments below, tell me why you are interested and I will hand select a few people to beta test with.

Add your comments now!

There are thousands of articles submitted to the top article directory sites each week and very few of them are getting the results they were promised. The article directory sites are not to be blamed, they are doing their part. The sites are allowing you to post articles about your website on their pages that are ranked high with the search engines. The sites even give you the resource box that allows you to leave a link to your site. They gave you the right tools to use, you just have to know how to properly do your part.

Think about what you look for when reading an article. You have to realize other readers will look for the same things as you. If you read an article for entertainment or for gaining information then your articles should be geared in that direction. Just creating an article that uses a particular keyword over and over or one that offers no real value to the reader will get you nowhere.

The idea behind article marketing is not just to see how many articles you can post and how many backlinks you can leave behind. The real success comes from the website who post real articles that contain real information or value to the reader. The link that is left behind in the resource box is there for a reason. You want the readers to click thru to your website to gain more information on what you have to offer.

If you have a website that sells pool covers and you are writing articles about how to BBQ in your backyard what use would the reader have for your site? Another point is if you just simply write an article about pool covers that offers the reader no information then they will not be compelled to click that link.

You have to use the articles to build a relationship between you and reader. Your main goal should be to offer quality that they can trust. If they feel that the article is useful and of high quality then they will trust that your website will offer the same.

Those pool covers you are selling are not going to move if the articles you are posting are poorly written. The poor quality in English or spelling can lead to a reader believing you are not a reputable business and they will make their purchases elsewhere. You have to use the article to establish your professionalism and to create the type of response you want. Poor quality will result in a poor response and high quality will always result in a great response.

Without the real understanding of how article marketing works to drive traffic to a website there is no way for the website owner to know how to write an article to achieve it.

Websites or writers offering their services are generally clueless as to how to correctly write an article that will not only promote your website let alone drive any traffic your way. Most of the freelance writers are unable to put together an article with correct English grammar that can be read or enjoyed.

Planning an article for article marketing takes strategic placement of not only keywords but links in the article. The writer has to know how to create a story of interest and one that will compel the reader to click the links to get more information on the topic.

An article directory will do your site no good at all if you do not use the right strategies when submitting. The reader has to be interested and want to know more about what you are saying. If you cannot accomplish this then you will never get anyone to click the links that lead them to your web page.

The purpose of submitting the articles to the directories is to promote your website as well as generate traffic. Many article directories have high page ranks and leaving a link on their page creates a great deal of interest in your site to the search engines.

An article written by a professional will normally be a better quality. You have to know what the article marketing standards are though, to be able to ensure that the writer or services you have hired are actually capable of delivering a quality article suitable for marketing.

Every article you submit to the directories will have a resource box for you to use. In the resource box you place an introduction to your readers telling them who you are and what your company is about. There should be careful planning in creating your bio. This resource box will be where you place a one way link to the web page of your choice.

Search engines such as Google will count one way links to your site as votes of confidence. The more one way links you have leading to your site the higher Google will rank your website. With higher ranks you are given the benefit of coming up in the top search result pages. Using article directories will help to quickly receive many backlinks to your site. If you use the correct article marketing techniques your online business will benefit tremendously. Most article directory sites have very high standards and will reject an article that is of poor quality.

If you have any thoughts or comments on this issue, I would love to hear from you… (add you comment below)

Web analysis is important to understand the current progress of your website. For instance, it lets you know about the daily amount of traffic that flows to your website. Knowing the daily average number of people visiting your website, you could therefore gauge the business prospects of your website. With web analytic tools, you can even discover the source of your traffic. In other words, you could come know if the traffic is coming through search engines, other websites, or direct. Most of your traffic should flow from search engines. In case you have a low traffic flow coming from search engines, your over all traffic flow is likely to be low as well. This is because, most people use search engines to visit websites.

You will also discover the hot pages of your website, and the pages that are not doing too well. You can then place your business ads on the hot pages, and work hard on your weak pages.

The information available is so in depth that you could even discover the keywords searched by the users to reach your website. This could be very useful information to you, for you can use the in-demand keywords in your content.

Also, the pages that most of your users exit from can also be known. You could find out the reasons for such behavior of visitors on these pages, and improve them accordingly.

It is therefore very evident that web analysis plays a very critical role in internet marketing, or specifically in promoting your website.

However interesting these features are, the most vital tool to your website is being able to track the number of visitors to your website every day. You can use the web analytics to actually optimize the web pages for the search engines in your SEO purposes. After you are aware of where they are coming from and who they are, you can begin to optimize your web pages. What keywords are they spending the most time searching for? Once you know this, you can optimize the pages that need to be optimized to meet the keyword demands. After getting the data that website analytics populates for you, just adjust and optimize on that data a little at a time and a few of them at a time.

The importance of learning web analytics is also at the top of the list for many firms, corporations and companies. A lot of company’s executives, sales teams and marketing teams formulate and execute their sales plans around the development and marketing of web analytics. When you have the actual information and facts surrounding your visitors and your customer base, it is a lot easier to figure out how to present your company’s products and/ or services to them to sell.

The most important thing in learning web analytics is learning first how to implement it in your business. The second thing is learning how to read the results. The third is using the web analytics with your search engine optimization efforts to blow the competition away and start converting your visitors to customers now! This is how you complete the sale and start making conversions right now!

Once you have successfully collected the data, it needs to be transformed. It can be a tedious task to review the web logs manually. You would therefore need to transform the available data into an easily understandable format that can be manipulated. Most of the web analytics tools do this functionality as well. However, certain non-web log formatted data such as CGI may need you do the conversion.

Now that you have all the data available to you, in an easy to understand format; you need to start your analysis. This should be the most interesting part of your web analytics task. What you should be looking for is the trend in your web traffic. Following are some of the points to figure out the trend –
Is there a specific time when most of your visitors visit your website?
What are the most visited pages of your website?
How many pages does an average user view before quitting your website?
On an average, how long do your visitors stay at the website?
Does your traffic come from the search engines?
What are the most common pages that most of visitors exit your website from?
Who is linked up to your website?

You should now be setting bench marks for yourself. With all the analysis done, you know the strong and weak points of your website. You can now plan your actions and execute them to reach newer standards. For instance, you could add more business links to the pages that are frequently visited by the people, and optimize the lesser visited ones for more traffic flow. In short, you should work in a direction to capitalize on the strong aspects of your website and improve on the weaker aspects.

You need to attract your visitors. Once you know that you need to make changes to your website, based on your web analytics, you will need to make the changes in a way that visitors notice them. Unless people know about the updates, there is not much use. For this, you would have to promote your website tactfully, highlighting the updated parts of your website.

You must repeat the above process time and again. This is in fact, a continual process that you must do.your attention at all times.

On-site web analytics on the other hand has everything to do with your website. The focus of the analysis is to measure the people visiting your website. Evaluation is done on the pages of your website that interest your audience. Also the other aspects of your website that gets the visitors to make purchases are considered. This type of web analytics is used to gauge the performance of your website in a commercial perspective. The resulting data out of the analysis done is used to optimize and improve the commercial value of the website.

Web analytics has its origin as old as the web itself. Gone are the days when web analytics was all about technical analysis of web. Today, the web analytic tools are used extensively for online marketing purposes. Although the analysis has improved by leaps and bounds, a lot still needs to be discovered and implemented. More and more web developers and marketers must share the analytic tools and use it to potential.

As you may know, websites record all the user interactivity in a log file. The log file contains the details about the user requests (hits) separated by a comma. In olden days, websites only contained text pages. These log files therefore only recorded the user requests for such text pages. A smart programmer wanted to draw a report out of this log file. He therefore programmed a utility to automatically scan the log file and report the number of user hits. This utility gave birth to what is called web analytics.

Today, the websites contain pages that do much more than just display text. There are animations, graphics, videos, sound and many other user interactivities on offer. A website owner is always keen to learn the number of hits made on such pages, by the visitors. The number of hits also gives you an idea about the performance of your website and the different pages in it. Web analytics help you do just that. You can view all such reports in a user friendly way. There are also graphs that display the hit rate of your web pages.

It may be noted that the web analytic tools are designed to generate reports based on the content present in the log file. If your server fails to log the details into the log file, your web analytic tool would have nothing to generate report from. As obvious, the analytic tool would generate different reports for different websites, depicting the rate of user hits for the different pages of the website.

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Slow Internet Connection? – Download Here

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Slow Internet Connection? – Download the file here

Luis presses me for final answers on traffic, and he gets me to reveal the core of my anger over the previous podcast, it’s definitely the Internet Marketing Podcast you want to hear.

And don’t forget until we get at least 10 comments on the podcast, there will be no future podcasts.

Basically it’s a whole bunch that of goofing around with nothing to do with internet marketing, but everything do to with what internet marketing provides.

EISH… did you get that?
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Slow Internet Connection? – Download it Here!